Fly me to the moon: space hotel sees 2012 opening

"Galactic Suite," the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80
minutes.

Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls
like Spiderman.

Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel's joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was
dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space.

I just got done reading an article about this. Very interesting idea, but I just don't see it happening. First of all, it is very cost prohibitive.
$4,000,000 is a big chunk of change, more than most people have. Also, I think the construction time frame is overly ambitious. A space hotel in 5
years? I just don't see it.

I popped around to a few sites... buddy claims to be well-financed (I can't confirm or deny that) and has $3B up front. Figures a market that can
draw from 43,000 who "could" afford such a jaunt. 15 - 18 sunrises are possible depending on orbit. No real mention of the hardware. There is no
real surplus of "uphill" rides either... all the launch folks would seem to be booked.

Buddy's "Galactic" website is... either avant-garde or bizzare or maybe both. He could be a brillant "nutter" (which is fine with me). If he's
for real 2012 isn't that far off. His older architectural site is "normal". Could be "space-junk", but the idea is there. I will watch this with
some interest.

Orbital hotel in 60 or 70 months? Maybe a disposable one using inflatable "baggie-rooms"... wouldn't want to be around for an MMOD hit though.
Yikes! The whole "contracts to build and service it" is not there yet.

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